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Monday 10.3.14 – The Knesset plenum session begins at 11 AM (instead of 4 PM) with the traditional practice of the weekly government no-confidence motions. All seven opposition parties (Labor, Shas, UTJ, Meretz, Hadash, Ra’am-Ta’al, Balad, Kadima) are expected to try to topple the government. All seven attempts are expected to fail. It is possible the opposition will give up on (one, more or all of) the no-confidence motions in order to devote more time to speeches on the Electoral Reform Bill.

Following the no-confidence motion votes, Constitution Committee Chairman David Rotem (Y.B.) will present two bills: An Amendment to the Basic Law: The government & an Amendment (#62) to the Elections to the Knesset Law. Together the two amendments are also known as “The Electoral Reform Bill” and many other names as well. The MKs discussions, including the opposition’s objections to the bill, have a time limit and the…

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Forget Russian figure skater Julia Lipnitskaia spinning in a blur with her leg impossibly held straight up against her ear. The sight of skier Bode Miller collapsing with emotion at the end of a race dedicated to his brother while NBC cameras lingered uncomfortably on the long shot. Or even jubilant Noelle Pikus-Pace climbing into the stands to race into her family’s arms after her silver medal finish in the Skeleton.

The image that stands out most in my mind during the broadcast of the 2014 Winter Olympics? The Cadillac commercial with a boxy, middle-aged white guy in a fancy house striding purposefully from his luxurious swimming pool to his $75,000 luxury Cadillac ELR parked out front while extolling the virtues of hard work, American style.

“Why do we work so hard? For stuff?” actor Neal McDonough asks in the commercial that has been playing without cease. “Other countries work. They stroll home. They stop by a café. They take the entire month of August off. “Off,” he says again, to reinforce the point.

Kati Marton (Norman Jean Roy/Vogue)

“Why aren’t you like that? Why aren’t WE like that?”

The first time the commercial aired during the Opening Ceremonies in Sochi, the slight pause after those two questions made me hopeful. I sat up to listen closely.

Was he about to say – we should be more like that? Because Americans work among the most hours of any advanced country in the world, save South Korea and Japan, where they’ve had to invent a word for dying at your desk. (Karoshi. Death from Overwork.) We also work among the most extreme hours, at 50 or more per week. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average American works about one month more a year than in 1976.

Was he going to say that we Americans are caught up in what economist Juliet Schor calls a vicious cycle of “work-and-spend” – caught on a time-sucking treadmill of more spending, more stuff, more debt, stagnant wages, higher costs and more work to pay for it all?

Would he talk about how we Americans, alone among the advanced economies, whose athletes are competing between the incessant commercials with such athleticism and grace, have no national vacation policy. (So sacrosanct is time off in some countries that the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in 2012 that workers who get sick on vacation are entitled to take more time off “to enable the worker to rest and enjoy a period of relaxation and leisure.”)

American leisure? Don’t let the averages fool you, he could say. While it looks like leisure time has gone up, time diaries show that leisure and sleep time have gone up steeply since 1985 for those with less than a high school degree. Why? They’re becoming unemployed or underemployed. And leisure and sleep time for the college educated, the ones working those crazy extreme hours, has fallen steeply.

Instead of taking the entire month of August off, the most employers voluntarily grant us American workers tends to be two weeks. One in four workers gets no paid vacation or holidays at all, one study found. And, in a telling annual report called the “Vacation Deprivation” study, travel company Expedia figures that Americans didn’t even USE 577 million of those measly vacation days at all last year.

Center for Economic and Policy Research, May 2013

So as I watched the Cadillac commercial, hanging onto that rich white guy’s pause, I was hoping he’d make a pitch to bring some sanity to American workaholic culture. It wouldn’t have been a first for the auto industry. Henry Ford outraged his fellow industrialists when he cut his workers’ hours to 40 a week. (Standards in some industries at the time were for 12-hour workdays, 7 days a week.) Ford did so because his internal research showed 40 hours was as far as you could push manual laborers in a week before they got stupid and began making costly mistakes. He also wanted his workers to have the leisure time to buy and use his cars.

The rich guy takes a breath and smirks. We work so much “Because we’re crazy, driven hard-working believers, that’s why.”

Bill Gates. The Wright Brothers. Were they crazy? He asks. We went to the moon and, you know what we got? Bored, he says.

“You work hard. You create your own luck. And you’ve gotta believe anything is possible.” Fair enough. “As for all the stuff?” he says as he knowingly unplugs his luxury electric car, “that’s the upside of only taking TWO weeks off in August, n’est ce pas?”

I groaned.

Cadillac spokesman David Caldwell told me to lighten up, that the ads were meant to take a playful poke at the European luxury car makers who have dominated the market for decades. “And at least it’s gotten your attention,” he said.

You know what really needs attention? What working like crazy and taking no time off really gets us:

1. Sick. Americans spend almost twice as much on health care per person than people in other advanced nations – paying out of pocket, while other countries pool resources — and we suffer more injuries and illnesses and die younger, the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine report.

2. Stressed. America may be the richest nation on earth, but the World Health Organization has found it is also the most anxious, with nearly one-third of all Americans likely to suffer from anxiety in their lifetime.

Richard Drew/AP

3. Stupid. In a study of brains using functional MRI technology, scientists at the Yale Stress Center have found that subjects who both lived through stressful events (and who hasn’t?) and felt stressed out had smaller brain volumes than less-stressed subjects in critical areas of the prefrontal cortex that govern thinking, planning, decision making, learning and remembering.

4. Off Balance. The United States ranks toward the bottom of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development’s work-life balance scale. And a growing number of Americans report feeling rushed, pressed for time, that they don’t spend enough time with their families, and at the end of the day, haven’t gotten to all the things they needed to do, much less wanted to do.

5. Disengaged. Gallup estimates that 70 percent of all workers are disengaged from their jobs, costing between $450-$550 billion each year in productivity. And although American productivity looks mighty in international comparisons, slice that productivity by hours worked, and the United States falls several rungs – in some years even below those countries whose workers stroll home in the evening after a shorter, more intense work day, stop by a café and take the entire month of August off. Off.

So yes, America, work hard. Hoo-ah American ingenuity, gumption and drive. But remember that inspiration comes in the shower, on a walk, in a moment of rest, not when your nose is to the grindstone. It’s just the way our brains are wired.

Remember that even hardworking Bill Gates typically gives himself Think Weeks, cloistered away twice a year, owns an island off Belize, vacations in Croatia, plays bridge and tennis to relax and reads in his palatial library. The hardworking Wright Brothers were only able to invent the first flying machine because they took a break from their busy bicycle shop, leaving Ohio to camp out in North Carolina’s Outer Banks in their leisure time for months.

And for all the hard work and effort on display every night for the past two weeks, these are the Olympic Games after all.

And remember, rather than working so hard to have stuff, better to work to have leisure, the Greek philosopher Aristotle said, upon which happiness depends.

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This is what we are fighting on Facebook today. Please get involved (by clicking on Anna’s “going”) and SHSRE, SHARE, SHARE and get your friends to click as well. We need to help ourselves if we are to receive help. I don’t think Zuckerberg, (despite his Jewish background) gets how awful this is and how damaging allowing it is.. I don’t know why he doesn’t, but I hope we don’t et sidetracked in our conversation about this. Instead, I hope we can think of additional strategies to deal with the problem itself..

I’m reposting these pics into one post so it’s easier for you to share. I think it’s difficult for people to believe that this is allowed on FB since Mark Zuckerberg is Jewish. Nevertheless, as you all know, it is, and we need to get that sad fact out! If you have any other photos/pages that you have reported but are still up, please post them here and I will update this collection when needed.Also, if you see anti-Semitic comments, please take a screen shot and post here (just look for a Hate Israel page and you’ll find plenty).

Sephardic Mizrahi Young Leaders My first contact with a Holocaust survivor was at a hospital ER, where I observed the number branded on a patient’s arm. From my interaction with him, he seemed like a gentle, kind, and sweet man. It is not up to us to try to make sense of the Holocaus…See More

The internet site, inaccurately named the Jewish Internet Defense Force (JIDF), is notorious in its extremely aggressive behavior with those who share opposing opinions. David Brotsky, the site’s creator, has opened…

The internet site, inaccurately named the Jewish Internet Defense Force (JIDF), is notorious in its extremely aggressive behavior with those who share opposing opinions. David Brotsky, the site’s creator, has opened…

For refusing to denounce fellow activists for Israel, I have become a target by the JIDF. My name and the Israel and Stuff page is being libeled on Facebook, Twitter and the Internet.UPDATED Plus links to other victim’s stories of how the JIDF viciously attacked them!

For refusing to denounce fellow activists for Israel, I have become a target by the JIDF. My name and the Israel and Stuff page is being libeled on Facebook, Twitter and the Internet. By Phillip Pasmanick,…

Founder Of The Jewish Internet Defense Force Threatens Murder And Vigilantism Against Dissenters

thetrenches.us

When persecution complex hits rock bottom it looks something like this. I’ve known of the founder of the Jewish Internet Defense Farce Force (JIDF), David Appletree (some say his real name is David Brotsky) for a…

This is a Petition to close my 17 Twitter accounts and 8 Facebook accounts,God Forbid!! Who would I have to talk too??!!

DON’T you DARE sign this…if you do, I will hunt you down, send thousands of hateful emails to your parents, kids, siblings & your dog AND I’LL spread even more outrageous lies even you couldn’t imagine!

Follow me on any of my aliases on Twitter.
I use them all to Harass & Discredit anyone who:1) Exposes my scam
2) Retweets something by Phillip Pasmanick
3) Argues with me because they don’t believe my lies
4) Supports the Israel and Stuff page

HERE is a perfect example of how the #JIDF#FRAUD & #Scam works on his #Jewish & pro #Israel page!!First the JIDF makes its phoney claims.
Then he changes into another account of his to ‘Share’
Then he changes into even another account to ‘Like’

No need to follow anyone who seeks out Jews to attack! Please Report: https://www.facebook.com/thejidfThese guys at the #JIDF (MPD – one guy, 24 aliases lol) needs to just go away and leave the pro-Israel activists alone!
I guess, ‘back in the day’ it was a Job, ‘Well Done’….but NOW, the groups I’m in get hate pages closed on a daily basis.

Has anyone notice the #JIDF is being deserted by hundreds of their followers?I guess you can’t fool all of them all of the time. Those with common sense are waking up!

Along with their incessant pandering, the #JIDF is notorious for their bullying. They’re known for repeatedly sending harassing emails to those to oppose their point of view. The JIDF has GONE AGAINST William Daroff, AJC, ZOA, Birthright, Israel21c, Israel News Agency, IsraelandStuff.com, Hatikvah and SO MANY OTHER pro- #Israel, pro- #Jewish advocates like me, and the almost defunct org,:http://www.actforisrael.org/.The JIDF defames, hassles and libels pro-Israel activists on their webpage, and their many #Facebook and #Twitter accounts. People need to know the depth of it’s cyber-terrorism.

PLEASE – WARN your Friends!

REMEMBER – They ARE NOT a Charity!! They are NOT associated with ANY Israeli Charity.

The bumbling bozo of the #JIDF has almost 300,000 ‘Friends’ after 5 years and has to use his aliases to come and make comments, ‘Likes’ and ‘Shares’ to generate movement on any of his pages.The JIDF is a #Fraud who post crap when not attacking Israel activists or posting self-promoting BS to attain illicit donations!

A disgusting example of a #Jew and an embarrassment to pro-#Israel activism.

This article was written by a real anti-Semite, but in this case, knows what he was talking about as he EXPOSES the creator of the #JIDF who was lying about his identity:AGAIN…the author is NO friend of Israel or the Jews!

ALERT! Please READ, LIKE and SHARE if you support Israel and are against antisemitism, terrorism, Holocaust denial, and the harassment, defamation, and breach of privacy, safety, and security of Jews and Israel supporters!

ALERT! Please READ, LIKE and SHARE if you support Israel and are against antisemitism, terrorism, Holocaust denial, and the harassment, defamation, and breach of privacy, safety, and security of Jews and Israel supporters!http://is.gd/pasfraud

Want to learn about #JIDF‘s effectiveness? Simply search for “JIDF” on any antisemitic or jihadist forum, or even popular forums, I’m general. Right now, someone who is pro-Israel and against antisemitism is being suspected of bring a “JIDF agent!” Have you ever been accused? If do, you’re doing good work!

I detest all forms of cigarettes …. smoking marijuana in South Africa where I grew up is called “Rook a Stompie” ( street Afrikaans ) … I have never tried and not embarrassed to say never will try this sweet smelling psychedelic drug that is becoming legal in many parts of the world and also in Zion.

Marijuana will now be collected by medical supply company Sarel, and packaged and distributed to approved pharmacies • Marijuana growers and some patients protest centralized distribution, saying it will lead to a monopoly and neglect of patients.

Shlomo Cesana

“I worry that patients will be totally overlooked,” says Yaki Cohen. Both he and his son Liav are prescribed medical marijuana

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Photo credit: Yitzhak Barbi

The Knesset approved an updated version of the cannabis law on Sunday and will now centralize marijuana collection and raise the number of doctors allowed to prescribe cannabis treatment to 31.

The bill was passed by a wide margin, and Health Minister Yael German promised to put the law into effect within a few weeks. The bill calls for severing the direct link between marijuana growers and patients. The marijuana will now be collected by medical supply company Sarel, and will be packaged and distributed to approved pharmacies.

“Creating a monopoly without a tender in this field is a fundamental breach of proper governance,” said Eli Zohar, an attorney representing the cannabis growers.

Patient Yaki Cohen said he was worried about the implications the new bill would have for him and his 8-year-old son Liav. Cohen is prescribed marijuana for chronic pain, while his son receives cannabis treatment for a rare form of brain cancer.

“You need to have the direct contact with someone on behalf of the grower. Different strains have different effects on the patient. It’s not static, but dynamic,” Cohen said. “Medical marijuana saved me and my son. A monopoly is a predatory thing and inconsiderate. I worry that patients will be totally overlooked [by the distributor].”

Education Minister Shay Piron doesn’t want school kids to learn Arabic. Of course, he doesn’t say this out loud, and if he is asked about it, not only would he not deny it, but he would also pratter on about how important it is to speak Arabic and how learning the language would serve as a cultural bridge and blah, blah, blah, just like the minister knows how to do.

In practice, though, he doesn’t want us to learn Arabic. He wants Arabic studies to last no longer than three years so that he could slash the budgets allocated to teaching the language.

Could this reform be part of the new policy introduced recently by the Education Ministry, which seems to be encouraging kids towards ignorance while teaching them a whole lot of nothing? At the same time, it is worth wondering whether there is anything special about learning Arabic.

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Education Minister Shay Piron doesn’t want school kids to learn Arabic. Of course, he doesn’t say this out loud, and if he is asked about it, not only would he not deny it, but he would also pratter on about how important it is to speak Arabic and how learning the language would serve as a cultural bridge and blah, blah, blah, just like the minister knows how to do.

In practice, though, he doesn’t want us to learn Arabic. He wants Arabic studies to last no longer than three years so that he could slash the budgets allocated to teaching the language.

Could this reform be part of the new policy introduced recently by the Education Ministry, which seems to be encouraging kids towards ignorance while teaching them a whole lot of nothing? At the same time, it is worth wondering whether there is anything special about learning Arabic.

It appears that there is. Whoever knows Arabic is likely to listen to Arab news media, surf Palestinian websites, and read Arabic newspapers. Then they are likely to discover the truth: the other side is awash with such a virulent stream of anti-Semitic racism that all talk of peace here is delusional.

The party to which the education minister belongs is entrenched firmly in what is inexplicably referred to as “the peace camp.” Knowing the Arabic language is anathema to this camp. The more Arab-language speakers there are, the less supporters.

Thus spake Abu Mazen

“The woman known as ‘the Maiden of Ludmir,’ Hannah Rachel Verbermacher, who became famous because of her outstanding studiousness and her becoming the only female rebbe in the history of the Hasidic movement, was, of course, a Palestinian.”

(Mahmoud Abbas, a doctor in history, from his book “How the Palestinians Created the World”)

Segmenting society

Polls in Israel consistently show that most Mizrahi Jews are on the Right side of the political spectrum, while a large chunk of Ashkenazim lean toward the Left. There are sociologists who have nurtured ridiculous theories in order to explain this state of affairs. The only thing they overlook is the most basic fact: a large chunk of Mizrahim speak Arabic.

Now, perhaps, just perhaps, that this is what lies beneath one of John Kerry’s bluffs, the one that says that a peace deal with the Palestinians would include monetary compensation for Jews kicked out of Muslim countries.

This is a bold-faced lie, and Kerry knows it. The agreement on which he is working, if it is ever signed, will be between Israel and the Palestinians. It won’t be with Iraq. It won’t be with Egypt. it won’t be with Syria or with Yemen. They won’t be party to the agreement, and they won’t pay billions. This conflict isn’t theirs.

Let us assume for a moment that they persuaded Syria to pay compensation. Where would the money come from? From hemorrhaging Yemen? An Iraq in ruins? Will it come from Egypt, where tens of millions of their citizens don’t know from where they’re going to get their next dry slice of bread?

Kerry knows that in the best case scenario, it’s a media fabrication for purposes of spin. In the worst case scenario, it’s a bluff. So why did he say it? Here’s a wild guess, which is certainly not true but in any case is worth mentioning just so that it’s clear what didn’t happen.

One day, one of Kerry’s advisers walked into his room and explained to him how Israeli society was structured and which of our various groupings are on the political right. “Jews love money. Should we try to buy them?” he asked one of his aides.

Again, we should emphasize that it is inconceivable for this to be a motivating factor in creating this compensation bluff.

Abu Mazen strikes again

“Three-thousand years prior to the Israelis, the Palestinians had already given the world the Patrick Kim pulp fiction series of books and they had documented the first-ever prescription for a congealed leg.”

(Abu Mazen, from his book “The Dawn of Humanity”)

Questions that will never be asked

Achinoam Nini, if you refuse to go on stage alongside a person who can’t stand homosexuals, then how is it that you performed in front of the pope?

Yisrael Shiran and Esti Brand, two individuals who were fired from the Education Ministry because of harboring right-wing views, will you agree to have your photo taken for the front-page of Haaretz and Yedioth Ahronoth?

Dear Sudanese migrant, if Israel is such a racist country, why are you fighting to stay here?

John Kerry, could you ask Mr. Obama what he would think about a proposal that would ban blacks from living in eastern Washington, DC? What about Jews in east Jerusalem?

Dear justice minister, as part of the campaign pushed by your ministry against racism and discrimination, will you also demand that Jews be permitted to pray on Temple Mount?

A reminder from Abu Mazen

“The Palestinian immigrants drained the swamps by planting eucalyptus trees. In short time, clashes erupted between the Palestinian pioneers and the clerks of Hebron.”

(Abu Mazen, from his book, “The Palestinian Pioneers”)

Trouble at home

On the order of the grand rebbe of Satmar, this Hassidic dynasty has begun a campaign against the Whatsapp application. They have a catchy slogan for their campaign: Press 1 for destroying the house.

It’s interesting to note that until now I was certain that Ariel Sharon destroyed more houses.

Just a minute, Abu Mazen is talking

“The Palestinians sat alone in the dark for at least 1800 years before the Poles.”

(Abu Mazen, from his book, “The Palestinians in the Krakow Ghetto”)

On the other hand

A photographer from another newspaper told me that Achinoam Nini asked him one time not to photograph her from the left, but to only get her right side. That’s because her left is the less photogenic side.

By chance, Achinoam Nini showed off her left side this week. She’s right. It really doesn’t look all that great.

Abu Mazen is just getting started

“Even Mordechai the Jew, Rabbi Shalom Shabazi, Hershele Ostropoler, and The Flying Matchmaker were all Palestinians.”

(Dr. Abu Mazen, from his book, “Gideon Levy Reveals”)

What do they want?

Last year, two ultra-Orthodox members of Knesset threatened that if this “wicked government” continued in its ways, they will not agree to accept budgets from the state. This week, the High Court of Justice took them up on their offer. What exactly is wrong with this?

One more

“The Palestinians arrived on the scene 2,000 years before the Palestinians.”